Thursday, January 15, 2009

Martha Stewart's Meyer Lemon Coffee Cake

First, thanks for your well wishes for my sinus infection gone mad. Be sure to mark your calendars for my award presentation! Oh yes, I'm giving The Food Librarian Nobel-like Prize for Drugs to those mad scientists who created the Z-Pack of antibiotics. Bless you! (And don't worry, I wasn't abusin' nor creating the next superbug...it really was bacterial and I took the full-course of meds!!) Being able to taste food again is such a delight!

Here is something I made in December...before I got sick!

Whoo hooo! It's Meyer Lemon season!

The Meyer Lemon Coffee Cake has two layers of thinly sliced Meyer lemons with a massive, I mean massive, amount of streusel.

Zest and thinly sliced lemons make this cake lemon-centric. Five Meyer lemons are sliced and then simmered for 1 minute.

After two rounds of simmering in water, the slices are spread out on parchment. It was easiest to do this with chopsticks!

The sour cream coffee cake batter is placed in a tube pan and 1/2 the lemon slices are layered. Then the rest of batter, the remaining slices and the streusel.

Okay, the streusel... almost 2 c of flour, 1 1/2 stick of butter, and 3/4 c brown sugar. It makes a bunch. A bunch. You place it on top, and there is still a bunch in the bowl. You put more of that on and there is still streusel left. Finally, you just throw the rest on and say, "dude, that's a lot of streusel." The glaze is really tasty and integral to the overall lemon flavor of the cake.

As much as I wanted this coffeecake to the queen of all coffeecakes, it didn't rock my world. I think there was too much streusel and while lemon flavored with the slices, it was pretty much like a coffeecake having lots of zest.

OK, I'm going to have to print out your post for my dad. See, my grandparents lived in RPV, CA and they had the most gorgeous lemon tree in their backyard. Well, in Texas my parents decided to have a lemon tree too and my dad tried to make this cake with the lemons. But it was awful because they weren't Meyer lemons and he cut the regular lemons way way too thick. Disaster in the kitchen! And he tried to blame Martha! You're proof that it's just him, not the recipe. The cake looks scrumptious. I have yet to see Meyer lemons in these parts so I'll just ogle it on your blog for now.

oh man ... thanks for your honest assessment, however, because it looks freaking amazing and i would have totally run out and made this had you said it rocked your world. i still haven't ever cooked with meyer lemons. must do that soon!

I have a little Meyer lemon tree growing out back...and I picked my first lemon and want to do something with it!! I have a few more coming off the tree...this might be something to try, it looks delicious!!

Awww - I was all set for you to say :this really rocked my world!: but...you didn't. What a bummer -

Anyways, I have no idea what we are going to bake for the next Bake Along - but of course you can join in. As soon as we decide something I'll let you know. Or, if you have any ideas, throw them my way.

This looks so incredible! I love all of your step-by-step photos. I'm having a round-up of lemon recipes from around the web, and would love to include a link to this. Let me know what you think, and if you have any other recipes. Thanks!